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Since my ordination in 1999, I have worked as an Associate Pastor in 5 different Presbyterian churches. I have been attending session meetings monthly since I was 25 years old…and I have learned a few things along the way! In my first call out of seminary, fresh and idealized about church ministry, I eagerly joined the session in the leading of the church. I was excited to gather with godly men and women who had been called and equipped to serve the church as elders. I felt proud of these elders who had stepped up to serve church with their precious time and talents (without any monetary compensation such as I was receiving).

When I was in college, I started writing a short play based on the Zacchaeus story. There was a man in our church named Bill who stood at an awesome 6’10” and I thought it would be ironic to cast him as Zacchaeus. “A wee little man was he.” Not.

Today on the ECO blog, we are grateful to hear from Sara Singleton, the founding director of ELI, Elder Leadership Institute: a church leadership training program in the Reformed tradition. ELI develops and supports spiritual leadership for the church by training ruling elders (members of Session) together with their teaching elder (pastor).

Most of my Christian life has been remedial. Since the Fall, perhaps that’s true in some sense for all of us. There’s a lot that comes naturally that must be unlearned: simple thingsthat stem from our inherited and inherent sin, as well as our living in a broken world. For example, take the common measure that is used for success. Deep in our bones, how many of us feel that success involves a modicum of recognition from others, some degree of comfort, a measure of financial security and a sense of personal satisfaction? But how did Jesus measure success? By doing His Father’s will. Period. In fact, Jesus said that he could do nothing by Himself, but only what he saw His Father doing (Jn 5:19). I don’t think for a second that Jesus couldn’t think about his mission, open his mouth to speak, or implement a plan that involved his disciples. It’s just that Jesus wouldn’t do anything apart from His Father’s will and the Spirit’s power. He could do nothing by Himself, otherwise, He wasn’t fully God: the eternal, unchanging, omnipresent God who is in perfect fellowship within the Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

How do I know whether or not i've received the Holy Spirit? That question troubled me a lot when I was young. Many of my junior high classmates were involved in the charismatic movement, and they had stories about signs and wonders that made me question whether my own experience of faith was really complete. After all, the New Testament often talks about baptism in the Holy Spirit as a specific event.

When I first started working with college students, ten years ago, I thought I needed to be “professionally cool.” I knew from past experience that I wasn’t the regular “cool.” I didn’t have the “it” my college or youth ministers had that made students flock to them. So, fresh out of grad school and eager to impress, I tried to have all the answers, look the part of a professional, and draw students to me with my wisdom. As you can guess, this approach failed miserably.

There is a profound difference between holding a doctrine to be true and living a true doctrine. We Presbyterians are, rightly so, rigorous in our Trinitarian understanding of God. We hold this doctrine to be essentially and vitally true. Yet we must acknowledge that sometimes our actual living of this doctrine is arguably more “binitarian” than Trinitarian. Regardless of word, we might declare our Trinitarian affirmations look more like “FATHER! SON! and Holy Spirit.”